About 1,000 Indian nationals working on the pipeline project
engineers as well as (general) workers.

The Star Online > Nation
Monday November 24, 2008

Tawau mill to produce quality paper from oil palm bunches

By ROYCE CHEAH

PETALING JAYA: The world’s first oil palm-based pulp and paper mill
is expected to start operations in Tawau by the third quarter of
next year.

Using technology researched by the Forest Research Institute of
Malaysia (FRIM), the mill will produce pulp and paper from empty
fruit bunches, oil palm bunches where the fruits have been removed.

FRIM director-general Datuk Dr Abd Latif Mohmod said the mill would
be capable of producing high quality A4 paper for export and local
use. The paper would be produced by a private company.

Dr Abd Latif said it was an industry with a potential earnings of
RM2bil annually.

“It will not only allow us to save hardwood trees from being cut
down for paper but also on foreign exchange as Malaysia imports a
lot of its paper from overseas.

“It is a perfect example of waste to wealth,” he said in an
interview.

It is understood that five tonnes of empty fruit bunches would
produce one tonne of pulp. Some 30 million tonnes of empty fruit
bunches are generated annually.

Dr Abd Latif said oil millers would be paid RM30 per tonne for the
bunches whereas the current market rate of pulp is between US$600
(RM2,160) and US$700 (RM2,520).

FRIM forest products division senior director Dr Mohd Nor Mohd
Yusoff said the Government had invested about RM35mil for the
project that was supposed to have taken off in 2005.

“There were some technical delays but now everything has been sorted
out. The factory will have all operations under one roof — from
shredding the empty fruit bunches, pulping and producing paper,” he
said.

Dr Abd Latif said this particular project was one example of the
potential available in commercialising FRIM’s research.

He has invited stakeholders and clients to come to FRIM so they
could learn about its research findings during a Technology Transfer
Forum on Nov 25 and 26. Check http://www.frim.gov.my/ for further
details on the forum.

Sarawak Will Have Biggest Oil Palm Area Under Felcra By 2010
Posted by VideoEdit
25/05/2009 (Bernama), Kuching - Felcra will develop another 11,000
hectares of land in Sarawak for oil palm cultivation by 2010, its
chairman Datuk Tajuddin Abdul Rahman said here today.

With the completion of the project, he said, Felcra Berhad would
have developed 55,000ha for oil palm, the biggest for Felcra as this
made up 36 per cent of the total area in the country developed by
the agency for oil palm, compared to 52,000ha in Pahang currently.

"We see that Sarawak still has a lot of land banks with the
potential of being developed into oil palm plantations compared to
the peninsula, and this will also help the government develop its
(Sarawak) rural areas," he said after attending a briefing at
Felcra's Sarawak office.

Tajuddin said 44,000ha of land in Sarawak had so far been developed
by Felcra, out of which 22,000ha had started producing.

He said the three new areas to have agropolitan projects would be
Batang Sadong, Batang Lupar and Pulau Beruit, involving 6,534ha and
3,700 participants altogether.

Besides that, he added, Felcra would also set up two people's
estates, involving 4,571ha, this year.

"Felcra's current focus is on economic, physical and human capital
development as part of efforts to overcome the effects of the global
economic slowdown."

Felcra now has some 94,000 project participants, including 5,544 in
Sarawak, with accumulated dividends given out amounting to RM3.5
billion of which RM72 million went to the participants in Sarawak.

Tajuddin said Felcra was also working at attracting more
participants and encouraging their family members to work in the oil
palm estates developed by Felcra so as to reduce the country's
dependence on foreign labour for work, such as harvesting the oil
palm fruits.

He said Felcra was now hiring 20,000 people for plantation work,
including 8,000 foreigners whom it aimed to reduce to 4,000.

A Memorandum of Understanding signing between the Forest
Research Institute Malaysia (FRIM) and Borneo Advance Pulp and Paper Sdn. Bhd.
for the setting up of the world's first oil palm-based pulp and paper mill in Sabah was witnessed by Minister of Primary Industries, Dato' Seri Dr. Lim Keng Yaik
on 30 March 2003

Investors :

Forest Research Institute
Malaysia (FRIM)

Director-General Dato'
Dr. Abdul Razak Mohd. Ali

FRIM will provide the
scientific and technical know-how to Borneo Advance

Borneo Advance Pulp and Paper Sdn. Bhd.

Chairman Dato'
Jaswant Singh Kler.

responsible for pulp
production, its co-products and other commercial aspects of the business

TSH biomass project is in Tawau, Sabah,
which generates 14MW. The second plant in Ipoh generate between 8MW and
8.5MW, of which TSH will use 4MW and sell the remaining MW output to Tenaga.

Malaysian Government

Government investing an
additional RM20 million in this project.

The Project

Cost : RM40 million Capacity : 25,000 tones of pulp a year

Production Technology :

FRIM
and Borneo Advance will jointly develop a new pulping method using empty fruit
bunches (EFB). The method will use caustics soda technology, developed by FRIM
since 1998, to convert EFB into pulp and its co-products.